Merry Christmas! What an incredible year.

"Taxing profits is tantamount to taxing success in best serving the public." — Ludwig von Mises, Profit and Loss (1951)

why do people say “happy holidays” instead of “merry christmas”?

Found trending on Twitter earlier today!

midjourney v6 is incredible

This is why I’m working on Airchat

"[The] evolution of memes [is] intrinsically much faster and more flexible than that of genes. During one human generation, which allows only one cycle of variation and selection of genes, there may be thousands of generations of meme evolution. Hence the frequently cited metaphor of the history of life on Earth, in which human civilisation occupies only the final second of the 'day' during which life has so far existed, is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of evolution. A substantial proportion of all evolution to date, perhaps even most of it, has occurred since the arrival of our species. It has occurred in our brains. The whole of biological evolution was but a preamble to the main story of evolution on our planet, the evolution of memes." — David Deutsch

“Every child that gets dragged to school against his will is an impairment on the growth of knowledge of civilisation, and who knows what has been destroyed thereby.” — David Deutsch

Are there any e/acc people on Nostr?

“The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.” — David D. Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism

“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.” — Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement

GM. If we don't accelerate, we're all going to die.

"Taxing profits is tantamount to taxing success in best serving the public." — Ludwig von Mises, Profit and Loss (1951)

Good intentions don’t produce good outcomes, good explanations do.

People who hate capitalism: do you hate the part where you can't decide how others should live their lives or the part where you have to decide how to live your own life?

Them: “What do you want for your birthday?” Me:

PROFITS ARE PROOF OF SERVICE In a free market, when a business generates a profit, it signals that it has produced something that consumers value enough to pay a price that exceeds its cost of production. Entrepreneurs are always looking to discover and capitalize on profit-making opportunities. Their actions play a crucial role in setting the prices of the factors of production. Hence, when an entrepreneur succeeds in making a profit, it means that he has not only satisfied the wants of consumers but has done so better than other entrepreneurs. Conversely, losses indicate a misallocation of the factors of production or a failure to meet consumer demands effectively. Contrary to the common fallacy, profits aren’t “taken out” of anything. Entrepreneurs profit because they enrich their customers, not impoverish them. Profit and loss are simply signals through which consumers delegate the management of production activities to those who are best fit to serve them. In our society, a prevailing and dangerous moral stance glorifies altruism and, out of ignorance, condemns profit and those who earn it. This widespread view, despite claiming moral superiority by equating terms like “profit” with “exploitation” and “selfishness” with “callousness”, causes a great deal of harm. By taxing profits (both monetarily and psychologically), people are discouraged from producing goods and services in the most efficient manner. As Mises wrote, “Increasing costs per unit of output, that is, waste, is praised as a virtue.” How can it possibly be moral to use scarce, valuable resources in a wasteful manner? There is no such thing as “excessive profits”. In a free market, profit isn’t an automatic return on capital; entrepreneurs cannot guarantee themselves a “normal” rate of profit by engaging in a set of default activities. And entrepreneurs are not obligated to “give back” to society. Profit is the natural reward of an entrepreneur’s contribution to society. Equality achieved through the forceful confiscation and redistribution of wealth is unfair and disintegrating for society. In the absence of a profit motive, the allocation of resources becomes arbitrary and inefficient. Profits ensure that resources are used in ways that create maximum value, as determined by the consumers themselves. Without the need to make profits and avoid losses, people “in charge of production” would not be bound to the desires of the consumers. I put the phrase in charge of production in scare quotes because those people are not really producing. They are consuming their resources by investing in processes that they themselves think are the best way but not those who are the supposed beneficiaries. Per Bylund said it best: “To want to ‘make a difference’ in society yet not in a way that can earn you profits really means you want to change things for others without asking for their approval.” “Men must choose between capitalism and socialism. They cannot avoid this dilemma by resorting to a capitalist system without entrepreneurial profit. Every step toward the elimination of profit is progress on the way toward social disintegration.” — Ludwig von Mises, Profit and Loss (1951) Socialists cannot escape economic reality. A society organized without the profit and loss mechanism still faces the essential task of allocating scarce resources effectively. The abolition of profit will only result in continuous losses, leading to a point where there’s nothing left to lose. We can’t let them win.

Naval on The Unscheduled Life

My favorite reads in 2023 (so far): - Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper by Bryan Magee - Science and Human Values by Jacob Bronowski - How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: A Handbook for Personal Liberty by Harry Browne - An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West by Konstantin Kisin - The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist by Richard P. Feynman - The Machinery of Freedom by David D. Friedman - How to Think about the Economy: A Primer by Per Bylund - Principles of Economics by @Saifedean Ammous - Profit and Loss by Ludwig von Mises - Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market by Murray N. Rothbard - Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less by Alex Epstein - The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

It's not enough to offer a superior product. Bitcoiners will have to win the ideological war, too. "If Bitcoiners Don’t Do More, CBDCs Will Win" by Logan Chipkin via @Bitcoin Magazine:

Bitcoin Magazine

If Bitcoiners Don’t Do More, CBDCs Will Win

As history has shown, incumbent powers can control the narratives around their inherently-inferior solutions.